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FAIRYE MADORA NEELY January 30, 1895 - June 20, 1934; 39 years old
By Roy “Buddy” Neely Jr.
Fairye was the sixth child of Will and Ulah Neely, the second born in Texas after the family had moved to Ellis County from Blount County, Alabama in late 1892. At the time of her birth, Will was a tenant farmer in the vicinity of Maypearl, a dozen or so miles west of the Ellis County seat of Waxahachie, and near the Johnson County line. Will farmed at different locations in that area for the next ten seasons, and at least a small part of the time near Venus in Johnson County where Fairye’s brother Roy was born in 1898.
Her upbringing was in the rural setting common to the day which included modest financial resources and lots of hard work for the older children as well as the adults. But typical also were strong family and ethical values, regular church attendance, and a sense of shared community among many like-situated friends in the area. The Will Neelys were Protestant Southem Baptists from the heritage of Will’s mother Sarah Hood Neely.
Originally called Eyrie, the community name was changed to Maypearl in 1903, and it was incorporated in 1910. In that era, Maypearl’s elementary and high schools served 300 students from the town and its environs, so we can infer that Fairye and her brothers and sister were enrolled for education there. However, it is well remembered that school attendance was considered secondary in importance to the necessary work at home, both in the household and in the fields, and that advancement by a grade each year was not assured due to frequent absences. It is known that Wastella’s education was greatly diminished because, as the oldest daughter, she had to help with the extensive cooking and housekeeping needed to support such a large family. It is not known to what extent Fairye’s primary education suffered.
Little is known about Fairye’s childhood except for one significant event. In September of 1903, Ulah’s older sister Georgia Anne Allgood Huffstutler and her family (including 10 of her eventual 15 children) also migrated from Blount County, Alabama to Ellis County. One of the children was Anna Beatrice Huffstutler who was born in October of 1894 and so was only three months older than Fairye. The two cousins became fast friends, undoubtedly enhanced by the fact that Fairye had only brothers close to her own age, and because her sister Wastella was four years older. In December of 1905 when Fairye was ten, Will moved the family to Nolan County, Texas which is about 200 miles west of Maypearl. As a result, the close childhood friendship between Fairye and Anna lasted only two years. Nevertheless, Fairye and Anna remained in occasional contact until Fairye’s untimely death in 1934. It is through Anna’s memories as told to her son Mac Stiles that we know some of the things about Fairye’s later life.
We have no oral history telling us anything specific about Fairye’s life growing up during the six years that the family lived at Wastella (named for her sister) in Nolan County, one year at Loraine, also in Nolan County, and one year at Colorado City in adjoining Mitchell County.
Will’s next younger brother, Stephen Farris, had moved his own family from Ellis County to Nolan County in 1902, farming 160 acres 2 miles southeast of Roscoe from then until his death in 1940. That farm is only about 10 miles from Will’s locations both at Wastella and Loraine, and some 20 miles from Colorado City. It is therefore undoubted that there was frequent interaction between the two families, including Will and Ulah’s thirteen children and Stephen and Mary’s five. Indeed, there exists an undated snapshot of Wastella together with her cousin Imogene who was only about a year older, apparently on a picnic when they may have been nineteen or twenty years old. Fairye at the time was only about two years older than another of Stephen’s daughters, Sallie, with whom she very well may have formed a friendship. There were weekend country fairs for entertainment which we know from the fact that Stephen’s older son Claude met his future wife, Mattie Mayes (who was a Loraine girl) at such an event in Roscoe. Mattie was still living in Houston at age 98 [in 2002], well in mind and charming. However, at the time of a recent visit, she did not recall Fairye among the Neely cousins she knew. She was born 9 years later than Fairye and the Will Neely family lived and farmed near Loraine for only one year.
Will again relocated the family, in early January of 1914, another 164 miles west to Barstow in Ward County, Texas, when Fairye was almost nineteen. We presume that Fairye was then nearing completion of or had completed her high school education, although it must be conceded, due to frequent moves to new towns, thought to have been accomplished each time during the winter months between farming seasons, that some interruption of the children’s education occurred. Unice remembers that earlier, during the harvest seasons of 1911, ‘12, and ‘13 when Will’s farms in Nolan and Mitchell counties did not yield a harvestable crop due to drought, he and Fairye, Wastella, Roy, Grover, and S.T. were sent together “back to East Texas” (presumably to relatives still in Ellis County) to pick cotton for wages, not returning home and to school until well into November (Christmas of 1913).
We have, from Aleene’s history of her father’s family, that Fairye’s next younger brother S.T. “earned money to send his sister, Aunt Fairye, to business school.” From this we might infer that Fairye was a successful student, and at some point after completing high school decided to begin a career of her own. We also might refreshingly remember that S.T. was within two years of Fairye’s age, and so was perhaps especially fond of her. We wish we knew more about the interactions between family members in those bygone days the better part of a century ago.
The next we know of Fairye is that she worked in La Pryor, Texas, perhaps as a secretary in a bank, according to some cousins’ uncertain recollections. We do not know exactly when she left the family in Barstow, nor why she chose La Pryor. However, we do know that her older sister Wastella married Roy Comett in December of 1912, after which that couple moved to La Pryor, where they lived until 1929. Also, some time after January 1920, but before the birth of Margaret December 31, 1921, Clyde moved his family from Glenfawn in Rusk County, Texas to La Pryor. So one could likely correctly assume that family connections led to Fairye’s job and desire to relocate to that area. From Bill Cornett’s oral autobiography spoken into a tape recorder about 1990, we know that Fairye took him (Bill) in 1918, age not quite four, by train from La Pryor to visit her parents at Barstow. The Southern Pacific train station was (and still is) 20 miles away at Uvalde. Bill remembers that they traveled in a Pullman sleeping car.
Since we know that Wastella left home in the winter of 1912-13, it might be assumed that Fairye then replaced her in the role of principal household helper in Barstow, which could have lasted for five years or so. However, the complexion and size of Will and Ulah’s family at home had changed. The three oldest boys, Erastus, Clyde, and Grover had already left home to be on their own. So by the WW I years from 1917 to 1919, when Roy and S.T. were absent as well, being in the armed services, the family at Barstow consisted of only five children, from Dixie, the youngest at age six to Otto at seventeen. After Ulah’s twenty-four childbearing years which resulted in fifteen infants, there was finally no little baby to care for. The second youngest, Leota (Otie) at nine years old, is known to have been helping cook biscuits (among other household chores) at that time. Perhaps Fairye felt that her presence was no longer essential to the family well being, and so could look to her own independent future. From the above, we might guess that Fairye left the Barstow home and moved to La Pryor around 1917, when she was about twenty-two, probably having already completed her business school which could have been accomplished at the much larger town of Pecos, six miles west of Barstow.
Research for this narrative has uncovered vague, but repeated references to a young man in whom Fairye was interested. No name has been discovered, nor location, nor time. The firmest seeming of several wispy memories has it that Fairye and the young man were engaged to be married, but that he died tragically very shortly before the scheduled wedding. It has been suggested that he may have been killed in WW I, ca 1918. Also we remember that there was a world-wide influenza epidemic that same year (to which Will’s brother John T. succumbed). We don’t know, and likely never will, where Fairye met her fiancé, or any other specific details. One might reasonably speculate (nothing more) that the courtship began in Barstow, and that the tragic culmination of it precipitated Fairye’s desire to make a fresh start in La Pryor.
It is not likely that Fairye was in Barstow in late 1917 for the following reason. Ulah’s father, Stephen Calvin Allgood died in Alabama on August 17, 1917. He had been married a second time to Manilah Nation in 1877 following the death of Ulah’s own mother, Martha Jones, earlier in the same year. The handicapped older sister of Ulah and Georgia Ann, Louella Kansas Allgood (later known to us as “Aunt Kansas”) who was still living at home from childhood, had received neglect and poor treatment at the hands of her stepmother for most of the 40 year interim, which was, strangely, unknown or not noticed by her father. In any event, Ulah made a trip by train back to Blount County shortly after her father’s death and “rescued” Kansas, bringing her home to Barstow late that year. During Ulah’s absence, before Roy joined the Marines, he and Otie, then nine, were the family cooks. Years later in her old age, Otie remembered details of their food preparation, including mimicking the sounds of the tin plates as Roy hurriedly set the table. One must conclude that Fairye was not there to cook.
There exist quite a few snapshots of Fairye during her La Pryor sojourn, which record outings and picnics to the nearby Nueces River, a clear spring-fed stream popular with the local populace, including the Cornett family. Also excursions were made to Medina lake, some twenty miles west of San Antonio and about eighty miles from La Pryor. In those photos, Fairye appears as a very pretty woman, well dressed, and apparently happy and joyful. One gets the impression that it was a time of adequate finances and pleasant living for her. One snapshot of Fairye with friend Ina Jeffries shows a 2 or 3-story white, well maintained building in the background bearing the sign “Hotel Nueces”, and indicating on the reverse, apparently in Fairye’s own handwriting, “This is our hotel, Fairye”. The 1920 Texas census for Zavala County (including La Pryor) listed Fairye as a boarder at a small hotel, and her occupation is listed as a book-keeper at a bank.
At an uncertain date, but apparently no sooner than March of 1923, Fairye left La Pryor and moved to Tucson where she held an important position with the Southern Arizona Bank and Trust. According to William Warren Neely, Ernest’s son who lived in Tucson at the time, that job lasted about twelve years, but it may have been as few as nine or ten. Virginia remembers that Fairye was “a pretty, soft spoken lady with long thick hair a deep chestnut color and brown eyes. She was a secretary to a bank president in Tucson.” According to Warren’s memory (Ernest Neely’s son), Fairye lived in a couple of small houses in Tucson, finally moving to one large enough to accommodate Leota (who stayed with her during the early part of her time as a student at the University of Arizona) and other visitors. Miles was also there for a part of one semester, and later perhaps, Sarah Dixie as well, for nursing training.
Fairye homesteaded a place, five acres, a few miles out in the desert foothills in the Silver Bell area west of Tucson. Many people took advantage of the homestead law to claim land during this period, even if they were primarily city dwellers. As required, they built and lived on the land for awhile. During his senior year in high school, 1932-33, Bill Cornett lived with Fairye at her cabin, partly for the reason, Bill related, that her family thought she should not stay by herself. The cabin was a small, mostly prefabricated, but neatly kept structure. (It is understood that Will had provided most of the financing for the dwelling, and it was moved to Gilbert after her death). Bill slept in a tent in the corner of the fenced yard. Each day they would drive into Tucson together, Bill dropping Fairye off at the bank and going on to school, and then reversing the process at the end of the day.
Ernest, who was Will’s youngest brother, and his wife lived with their only child, Warren in Tucson. Fairye and Leota were frequent dinner guests in their home, particularly on holidays. Warren, who was born in 1919, (and was still living in Florida at age 83 as of 2002) also remembers spending some overnight visits at Fairye’s homestead cabin. As a very young boy he remembers being greatly impressed by the fact that Fairye could make chocolate covered cherries that were ‘just like store bought”. Throughout the ten years or so that he knew her, he was impressed by her “happy outlook and friendly nature. Fairye didn’t have a mean bone in her body.” Apparently Warren’s mother, Jessie, also shared that perception and really liked her because, years later after her husband, Ernest Neely, had died and Jessie’s health had declined to the point that she needed either to move a long distance to live with her son or find a live-in companion in Tucson, Jessie said to her son, Warren, that the only person she could even think of helping her in that way was Fairye (who was long dead at that point).
Although little seems to be remembered by our living cousins about Fairye during the decade she lived and worked in Tucson, it seems quite likely that she made frequent visits to family in the Gilbert area. One would naturally suppose, given the moderate time required by a bank job, that she could use weekends for her own choices and pleasure. It would seem especially likely that she attended her mother when possible during Ulah’s short but final illness in 1932. After the marriage of Ulah’s last child, Dixie, in December of 1930, there was for the first time since 1887, when Erastus was born, no child in the Will Neely household (Aunt Kansas had died in 1926). That is an interesting fact to contemplate as one looks at the family reunion pictures of July 1931 which includes the still beautiful Fairye. Sitting beside Will, Ulah was holding their first great grandchild, Elaine, with seeming great pleasure. It is easy to imagine that during visits that year, Fairye and her mother had time to reflect on the many previous decades of family activity and progress. That reunion was only eight months prior to Ulah’s death from cancer, and one wonders if her remembered “stomach trouble” symptoms had already begun, and if Fairye might have been a comfort as Ulah considered her uncertain future.
Fairye was involved in a serious automobile accident about 1932 or 1933 for which we have two slightly differing accounts as follows. From Warren: “Some months before the illness that eventually took her life, Fairye went to California (near Long Beach) on vacation with her younger sister Leota Neely Knox, and was involved in a car accident. She was in the front passenger seat, sustained severe cuts on one arm, and was in the hospital for some time.” Warren doesn’t remember whether her injuries had healed well enough for her to go back to work before her final illness became apparent or not. From Virginia: “On her way home after a visit in Gilbert she was in a wreck. Her right arm went through the windshield and was badly cut, severing muscles, etc. It was repaired and they said she would likely never have use of it again. They didn’t know they were dealing with a hard headed Neely. She worked, exercised, etc., and taught herself to be left handed. I remember her sitting and rubbing and massaging those ‘useless fingers’. Before she died she was able to type again.”
When it was realized that she had contracted cancer, Fairye moved to her father Will’s house in Gilbert, where she stayed for about four months until her death. Warren remembers driving up from Tucson with his father, Ernest, to visit Fairye during that time - she was resting comfortably in a bed on the porch but with no medical treatment apparently possible. Who, besides Will, cared for Fairye? Perhaps Otto’s wife Edna, Clyde’s wife Mae, or Leota (Otie), who all lived in the area.
Fairye died June 20, 1934, a little over two years after her mother. Warren and his parents, Ernest and Jessie, drove up from Tucson for the funeral and Warren remembers the church and the cemetery as being almost overpoweringly hot, even for Arizona. Fairye lies in the Mesa cemetery beside her mother Ulah, her father Will, and her Aunt Kansas.
Since Fairye is quite a unique given name, we have wondered for whom she might have been named. A bit of research has revealed that Sarah Hood, Will’s mother, had a first cousin, Sarah Minerva Nation whose third[sic - apparently actually the 9th of 12] child was called Fairye, born in 1882, possibly in Mississippi. This Fairye later lived in Ellis County, Texas, probably at the time of "our" Fairye’s birth in 1895, and also at which time Sarah Hood lived in Ellis County. That is the only other place in this family tree that the name Fairye has been found.